10 months old...already

Miss Avery is 10 months on the 19th! Time is flying by and our little sweetie gets cuter by the day. It seems like every week she is accomplishing something new. Sam is busy at work and I am keeping myself occupied in our trailer as well as trying to keep Avery and myself cool in this ridiculously hot weather!

Avery's 10 month accomplishments:

• she is pointing at objects and babbling
• standing a few seconds unsupported
• she plays peek.a.boo on her own
• feeds the dogs her food (the dogs like this a lot)
• understands "no no" and "come here"
• has survived her first trip to the ER (more like I survived it), a fever of 104+, urinary catheterization, and a blood draw!
  

No walking yet...Sam and I decided that she probably wont walk until she is closer to 12 mo or later unless she has a real breakthrough in the near future.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but our internet use is restricted these days.

Back in Santa Fe

It has been a crazy few months but we are finally home after a wonderful trip to Seattle. Sarah and Luke's wedding(s) went beautifully as expected. They are now enjoying a honeymoon in Fiji...I hope you two are having a blast!
Avery held up terrifically and could not have been any better on our flights. She handled the shuffling around from place to place and busy week in Seattle wonderfully! Aside from chillin' with the Millhouse gang in WA, we did manage to make it downtown to the public market and made our first trip to IKEA. We had a blast seeing some very dear friends! We also enjoyed the wonderful Pacific Northwest weather. Nothing like some clouds and misting rain :) I am not being sarcastic...I really do miss it.

Below are a few photos I have of Avery and I's adventure to Seattle....there will be more in the future. I am sure the wedding photographer got some great shots that I will be sure to share.

Happy Avery enjoying some leg stretching time waiting to board our flight to Seattle.

Sarah and Miss Olivia @ the rehersal dinner.


Avery about to pass out in downtown Seattle


Fish tossing...this fish was outrageously priced!


Avery stole my waffle off my plate!


Avery was obsessed with this vent!


Happy Independence Day on our way home to Santa Fe.

dimples

Getting Settled...

We have finally moved into the trailer and unpacked most of our boxes. Only a box of shoes and a box of random bathroom crap are left. I have hung our pictures and gotten us pretty organized, but we still have a daily object that comes up missing. We can't seem to locate the remote for our computer and we are in the process of locating the cord that connects the camera to the computer so I can upload pictures. One of the bathrooms is still not working (who knows when the damn plumber will finally finish the job), the AC should be finished tomorrow, I believe a guy is coming on Wednesday to work on the front and back porch, the dryer is waiting on a part so it can be converted to propane and the electric should be taken off the temporary system and put on to the permanent system this week sometime. So as you can see I have been dealing with a lot of men who speak no English hanging around the house. I really wish I knew Spanish.
Avery seems to enjoy the place. She has recently realized that she can simply follow me when I walk out of the room rather than sit there and scream :) This is a nice change. She has also started to point at things and is using her push toy more often. She has totally fallen off the growth curve after that nasty stomach bug we all had. The doctor has me making the formula slightly more caloric and adding oil and butter to her solids. Her new favorite food is tater tots! I am pretty much giving her whatever I am eating because she wont eat baby food anymore. The doctor assured me not to worry about failing to thrive because she is above and beyond on her social and motor skills for her age. I showed him a video of her climbing stairs and he was in shock (in a good way).
The dogs are driving us nuts. It is a big open space and they think that means they can run off when they feel the urge. Really annoying! Frankie is working hard. She caught a mouse this morning and I thought it was dead and made her drop it. Apparently she was playing with it and it ran off. I am sure she will get it soon.
Today, Brian (coworker of Sam's) installed a repeater to boost our cell phone coverage. This now allows us to actually talk on our phones in the house and even enough coverage to let us use the internet. It is not as fast as I am used to but is much faster than the old dial up days.

9 months old!

Avery's current accomplishments:

• She can crawl like a maniac
• Can get into the sitting position with ease
• Pulls up to standing on EVERYTHING
• Eating just about anything (we have starting giving her more dairy products and she seems to be tolerating yogurt, cheese and baked goods with dairy)
• She will crawl with a toy in one hand and also try and pull up to standing with a toy in one hand
• I think she says "Mama"
• She can wave
• She can dance if she wants to
• She also prefers to feed herself
• Has learned how to spit food
• Will hold her bottle 85% of the time
• Figured out the sippy cup
• She will hang on to you when being held!

On a side note: we had a stowaway on our return to Santa Fe from Albuquerque. It started with Avery vomiting all night, moved on to me, and now Dr. Smith is laid out on his death bed. Avery got over it really quick and seems to feel better. I took about a day to recover, but thought I was dying the entire time. I even resorted to calling Sam to come home from work because it is a little hard to be that sick and take care of a needy, teething 9 month old. He was unable to get home any earlier than normal, but poor guy is in the peak of this stomach bug right now. He has been throwing up for 16 hours now and cannot keep anything down. Yuk!

Avery & Mom go to Albuquerque

With Sam working so much, I need to get a life ;) Waiting for our trailer to be ready so we can get settled has been really boring. Luckily, Sam's cousin Ryan came to my rescue. Sam has to work, so it was just Avery and myself off to visit family in Albuquerque for the day. Avery got to meet her second cousins Ronin (almost 4) and Dresden (1 next month)! She also got to meet cousins Ryan, Katrina, Jocelyn and Peter. We hung out, had lunch and played around until Dresden and Avery decided they had had enough and needed naps. Then it was back to Santa Fe.

Ronin playing with his Uncle Peter



Dres tries and accomplishes stealing back her apple slice. (Notice their matching shoes)



Dresden playing with the sought after toilet plunger.

Avery's New Buddy!

This weekend we were invited to the Thal's for lunch and then joined them at the Thirsty Ear Festival @ the Eaves Movie Ranch. There was some good music, great tamales and wonderful company. Avery got to get out and hang with Mister Russell (16 months old). Russell was full of personality and introducing himself to just about anyone who'd pay attention to him. Avery was a bit on the grumpy side, but I think she still had fun.
Trailer update: Kristin said that if everything runs as planned we might...she stressed might be able to get in by the end of this week. She would still be around the house doing some minor fix ups, but as long as we don't mind her poking around (and we don't) we could get in sooner. I am kinda of tired of living without my things and a kitchen. We are managing....

Mr. Smith is now Doctor Smith!

Sam was hooded on 5/13 and graduated on 5/14 from Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences with a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine. The ceremonies were surprisingly quick and entertaining. Most notably was a long winded, but quite funny speech from Dr. Holt, a food animal veterinarian @ CSU. (I linked an article that talks a little about what he does these days.)
Anyways, it was a great weekend with lots of family around to show their support. It has been awhile so the little details have left my mind. It was a happy weekend, but also a little sad because we knew we were saying goodbye to a lot of good friends we have made over the years.
Poor Sammy is in the midst of the equine veterinary world now. Poor guy has been called in the past 2 nights. Once to check on a newborn foal and then last night to do an exam on a colicing horse. Not to mention it has been in the 90's since he began work.
On a good note our house was delivered and hopefully (fingers crossed) they can get it hooked up and running quickly!

Newest Members of the 505

As most of you know we have had a very busy month and are finally getting a little grounded in Santa Fe. I will definitely have to back blog a little to get caught up. But, today I will just keep it simple. We made it to NM on Thursday afternoon and are staying at a lady's guest house until our house is ready for us. It is being delivered today and hopefully they can get it up and running quickly. But, I have no expectations because I know where I am and am learning quickly that New Mexicans do move at a different pace and stride. I won't go into my Walmart experience, but I don't know that I will be visiting Santa Fe's Walmart as often as I did the Fort Collins. In short, I couldn't find a damn thing and the service was AWFUL.
My first NM impression: I ran to the gas station (ALLSUPS) around 9 PM on Thursday night because I was starving and we are nowhere close to any fast food (the gas station is a 10 min drive going 50 mph). I was getting ready to pay when a man walks in and tosses a handful of change on the counter and states, "Pump 6", and when the cashier asks how much he replies, "I don't know, count it", and he rushed back out. I think it ended up being 2 bucks and 17 cents and mostly pennies and nickles. Anyway...there was also a bum hanging out outside my car when I left the gas station. He was talking to himself and I think gave me a dirty look...
It is definitely different than Fort Collins!
It is beautiful here! The sunsets and sunrises are ridiculous. The Thals (Sam's new employer) seem very excited to have us here. It was nice to have such a warm welcome. I swear Doug was just downright giddy. They have a 16 month old boy named Russel who couldn't be any cuter! I hope that he and Avery will get to be good pals.

Right now we have been dealing with 2 neighbor dogs who know how to open the door to the house we are living in and let themselves in whenever they feel like it. They keep waking Avery up and I am getting pretty annoyed. I am also getting the feeling that the owner could give a rat's ass about how we feel about 2 dogs barging into our house at 5 am and getting our dogs riled up and barking and waking up everyone. Grrrrr